Khamenei’s Website Denies Infiltration By French-Jewish Journalist

Catherine Perez Shakdam ina hijab while she was a Muslim convert.
Catherine Perez Shakdam ina hijab while she was a Muslim convert.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's website has denied any relations with an “Israeli” journalist who allegedly “infiltrated” Khamenei’s official website.

Fars news agency, affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, published a statement on Sunday to reject reports about Catherine Perez Shakdam contributing to the English version of Khamenei’s website.

The statement added that Khamenei.ir doesn’t have any columnist and Shakdam has no direct connection with the website.

However, it confirmed that Shakdam sent articles and opinion pieces on issues related to Islam and the Islamic Revolution to the website from about 2015 to 2017 that were published on the site.

The website had no communication with the writer since then and removed its articles, the statement said.

The articles Shakdam wrote for Khamenei's website had been removed but many of them can be accessed via internet archive websites.

A scandal broke in major state-affiliated news outlet after supporters of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that she had been an Israeli “infiltrator”.

Over a period of several years, Iranian state-run media such as the English-language Press TV and the national broadcaster (IRIB) interviewed Shakdam, introduced as "political analyst and author based in London," while the Tasnim and Mehr news agencies published her articles.

Shakdam is a French-born Jew, a UK resident, and was a convert to Shiism. She boasted that her holding a French passport and former marriage to a Yemeni Muslim gave her "a free pass to many Islamic countries."